Being Desi Queer: My Life Journal (Pt.2)

Being born desi is so weird. Sometimes, I wish I was born in another country. Norway, Sweden, or maybe the UK. I don’t know but not here or any other similar country. Not because I hate my homeland, not even because I hate my culture, but because I don’t like the people. I don’t like the way they think, the way they whisper behind closed doors, the way they turn love into shame, the way they crush anything that doesn’t fit into their narrow idea of “normal.”

Let’s be honest, we’re living in the 21st century, yet these people are still trapped in some god-knows-what century, clinging to outdated beliefs like a lifeline. They don’t even allow love marriages or relationships between men and women without making it a battle of caste, class, and family honor, so how can we ever expect them to accept same-sex love?

They don’t want happiness.

They don’t want love.

They want control. Yep, only control. That’s all that matters to them.

Maybe because, deep down, they know the truth.

They know how they’ve raised their children: drenched in trauma, weighed down by expectations, suffocating under rules that were never fair to begin with.

They know, one day, those same children will leave. Walk away. Cut ties. And they can’t accept that.

So instead of owning up to their mistakes, instead of reflecting on the damage they’ve caused, they do the easiest thing: They blame it all on “this generation.” They wrap their failures in the name of “tradition,” in the name of “culture.” They convince themselves that it’s not their fault, that it was always meant to be this way. That control is love, and love is control.

But it’s not.

And no matter how much they try to justify it, one day, the people they tried so hard to keep in chains?

They’ll break free.

These people thrive on drama and conflict, feeding off the chaos of others’ lives. It’s never about what makes people genuinely happy, it’s about what makes them comfortable, what fits into their narrow little definition of “right.”

They want obedience, not happiness.

They want power, not progress.

And the worst part? They hide behind the word “culture” for everything. As if culture is some ancient rulebook that can never change. Culture should evolve, just like everything else. Even ancient rulebooks have been amended so many times. Even ancient rulebooks are dynamic but these people. Instead, they twist it into a prison, trapping anyone who dares to live outside their rigid expectations.

How do you call it love when it comes with so many rules?

How do you call it tradition when it suffocates the very people it’s supposed to protect?

It’s exhausting. It’s suffocating. And yet, they expect us to just accept it, to live in silence, to never fight back.

But I won’t.

I don’t like the government, either. The rules, the expectations, the suffocating control over things that should be nobody’s business. 

My marriage is my concern. My love has nothing to do with you.

The way these people decide what is “moral” and what isn’t. The way they pretend to care while turning a blind eye to the real suffering of their own people. But more than that, I don’t like how this society forces you into a life you never chose.

I never chose to be born into a world where marriage is a duty rather than a choice. Where love is a transaction instead of a feeling. Where the weight of my family's honor is somehow placed on my shoulders before I even had the chance to figure out who I really am.

I never chose to be born into a place where being different is a crime, where who you love is a scandal, where stepping even a little outside the norm makes you a walking target for judgment, gossip, and rejection.

And yet, here I am. Trapped between who I am and who they want me to be. 

I’ve spent years trying to untangle my own thoughts, trying to decode myself, trying to understand whether the feelings I have are real or just a product of my own confusion. But deep down, I know the truth. I am a girl who likes girls. There I said it. That much is undeniable. The rest? I don’t know yet. And maybe I don’t need to.

I just wish I could breathe. I wish I could exist without this constant fear pressing against my chest. I wish love didn’t feel like some kind of forbidden secret, something to be buried under layers of self-doubt and cultural expectations.

But here’s what I’ve decided: 

One day, when I’m strong enough, when I have the power to stand on my own, I’ll leave. I’ll escape this cage and find a place where I can just be me.

I’ll build a life where love is love and not a death sentence.

Where my feelings aren’t something I have to justify or hide.

Until then, I’ll stay silent. Not because I want to, but because I have to. Because in a world like mine, survival comes before honesty.

But one day?

One day, I won’t just survive. 

I’ll live.

And when that day comes, I’ll never look back.

If moving abroad didn’t require so much money, I would’ve been the first to leave this place. But then again, when the time comes… will I actually be able to? I ask myself this question too many times. Because not everything can be about love, right? What about my family?

Even though I know, deep down, they will never truly accept me, I still can’t bring myself to leave them. No matter how much I wish I could.

Because at the end of the day, they are the best thing that has ever happened to me. Even if it’s not the same the other way around. Still, every single day, I am grateful to have them with me.

But I also know this: if I walk away, if I break free, every girl around me will be bound in even bigger chains, because I dared to break one.

And that’s the worst part, isn’t it? How freedom isn’t just about me. How my escape wouldn’t just be my own. It would be an example, a warning, to every other girl who dares to dream beyond these walls.

They’d say, “Look at what happens when you give a girl too much freedom.”

They’d whisper about how I was ‘lost,’ how I strayed too far, how I became selfish.

They’d use my name as a lesson. A cautionary tale.

And the girls left behind? They’d suffer for it. Because when a system is built on control, any act of defiance is met with even tighter restrictions. Even harsher consequences.

So, I stay. I stay because I love them, even if they will never love all of me. I stay because I’m afraid, because I’m not ready to carry the weight of being ‘the one who left.’ I stay because I know that the price of my freedom is a cost others will have to pay.

But how long can I keep living like this? How long can I keep pretending that sacrificing myself is the only way to protect them?

Because one day, the weight of staying might just be heavier than the fear of leaving.

Even if one day I had enough money, would I truly be able to escape my own chains? Would I really have the strength to walk away, knowing what I’d be leaving behind?
What would happen to my family? How would they survive among these people.. the same people they call their own, the same people who would turn on them the second they realized they had raised a daughter like me?

I know they would stand with them. I know they would abandon me if I told them my truth. That much is certain.

But even then, this society wouldn’t let them live in peace. They’d whisper, point fingers, cast shadows over their lives. They’d make them feel like failures, like they had done something wrong by bringing me into this world.

And that’s the cruelest part, isn’t it? 

That even if I walk away, even if I do everything to spare them from my ‘shame,’ they would still suffer. Because in this place, it’s not enough to control just one person. No, they want to control everything: every thought, every life, every possibility of freedom.
So where does that leave me? Caught between two prisons. One of staying, suffocating, shrinking into the version of myself they want me to be. And one of leaving, knowing that even in my absence, my existence would still be a curse to the people I love.

Maybe there is no right choice. Maybe no matter what I do, I lose.

But if I have to lose, I just wish.. God, I wish, it could be on my own terms.

My family has done everything they could for me. My father worked tirelessly to ensure we never had to sleep hungry, never had to endure the taste of ‘sukhi roti’ because he always found a way to provide. How could I ever leave him? 

My mother. She has shown me the depths of love, the lengths we go to for the people who matter. How could I turn my back on her?

My sister. My brother. They have always stood by me, through thick and thin. How could I ever walk away from them, knowing they would be left behind to bear the weight of my absence?

How could I leave them to hear the taunts of people around me, people who have done nothing with their lives except wish bad upon my family, waiting for the slightest crack to appear so they can pounce? When actually it's my own uncle and aunts?

I know my parents would be furious if they ever heard me say this about their family. But I can’t help it. I can’t stop myself. Because the truth is, my parents are too kind, too pure-hearted for this world. They believe in seeing the good in others, in placing themselves in other people’s shoes before ever uttering a harsh word.

But I’ve seen the world for what it is. I know kindness alone doesn’t protect you from cruelty. I know love alone doesn’t shield you from judgment. And I know that no matter how much good my parents put into the world, there will always be those who wait for them to fall, just so they can say..

"See? We told you so."

"See, you should’ve listened to me and married her off early."

"See, this is why girls shouldn’t be allowed to study."

"See, this is what happens when you let your daughter go out.. she got wings."

Wings. As if freedom is a curse. As if thinking for myself, making choices for myself, is something unnatural. As if a person daring to exist outside the lines the society drew is a mistake that needs correcting.

And maybe that’s why I hesitate. Because if I leave, I give them the perfect excuse. I become the proof they’ve been waiting for, the cautionary tale they’ll use to clip the wings of every girl who comes after me.

But if I stay… if I stay, I clip my own.

But then, how could I leave? How could I abandon my family when I know what’s waiting for them in my absence?

And yet… if I stay, I will never be free.

You know, I have a dream.

A dream so beautiful, so fragile, that I barely dare to say it out loud.

A dream where I am free. Truly free. Where I don’t have to live in fear of what people will say, or what they’ll do if they find out who I really am.

A dream where love is just love, not a battle, not a sin, not something that must be hidden away in whispers and shadows.

A dream where I wake up one day and I don’t have to choose between my happiness and my family. Between myself and them.

A dream where no girl has to clip her wings just to survive.

A dream that feels like home..

“Good morning, love,” I whisper, pressing a soft kiss to her cheek. She stirs, her eyes still sleepy, crinkling at the edges as she smiles. “Good morning,” she murmurs back, her voice warm, familiar, safe.

I pull her closer, and she holds me just as tight, as if we have all the time in the world. We leave the house hand in hand, stepping into the sunlight, and as I drive, she sits beside me, my passenger princess, phone in hand, guiding the way with maps open. And of course, we argue, because she told me to turn left, but it was too late.

But it’s never serious, never more than a moment. Because at the end of the day, we laugh, we tease, and we find our way together.

And maybe, just maybe, one day, we have kids of our own. Their laughter fills the air as they run up and down the slides, their nana and nani watching over them with warm smiles. And I sit beside her, my fingers laced with hers, my head resting on her shoulder, feeling the steady rise and fall of her breath. 

And in that moment, everything is as it should be.

It’s warm.

It’s safe.

And most of all, it’s home.

I don’t have to hide for being myself.

I never imagined marriage, never dreamed of having kids, until I realized it could be with a girl. And now… I want to. I don’t know why, and I don’t want to question it. Because if I do, I might overthink it, might let doubt creep in where it doesn’t belong.
I don’t need to define myself with labels, don’t need to fit into a neatly wrapped box just for the sake of others. But if someone were to ask me, if I knew I was safe, I would say it proudly, without hesitation.

“Yes. I like girls.”

Maybe I'm Bisexual. Maybe I'm Lesbian. I don't know. 

My heart skips a beat every time I hear the word lesbian.

As if it’s something forbidden, something I shouldn’t touch. My body tenses, anxiety creeping in like a shadow, whispering that it’s wrong, that I shouldn’t claim it.

And yet… I want to.

I want to say it out loud, to let it roll off my tongue without fear. Because deep down, I like it. I like the way it feels, like a quiet truth I’ve always known but never dared to embrace.

If my parents ever found out about all of this, they would be devastated.
“Is this why we gave you so much freedom? So you could waste your time thinking such stupidity? Such shameful, disgusting things? Dating girls?”

And I wouldn’t even blame them for thinking that way. How could I? They raised me, they gave me everything: food on my plate, clothes on my back, an education they fought to provide. In their eyes, I should be grateful, obedient, normal. And yet, here I am.

Here I am, carrying a love they would never understand, a love they would rather erase from existence than let bloom.

But tell me, how do I just stop? How do I rip this part of myself out and throw it away without breaking the rest of me?

How do you keep breathing when your own body feels like a cage?

How do you quiet your thoughts when they scream inside your head, making it pound until it feels like it might split open?

How do you loosen the grip on your chest when every breath feels like a punishment?

Like a prison sentence you never signed up for?

They say love is supposed to feel warm, soft, like a place you can rest. But for me, it feels like suffocation, like a secret that’s killing me slowly.

And the worst part? I don’t even want to let it go.

I don’t want to let these emotions go.
But if I could, I would let it go.

I would choose to be straight, just like everyone else. Just like how they believe they chose to be straight, as if it were that simple. As if it were a decision I could just make one morning, like picking an outfit or deciding what to eat.

“You’re just confused.”

“You can change if you really want to.”

“You just haven’t met the right guy yet.”

I hear it all the time.

Spoken in whispers. In warnings. In disgust.

For the girls who dare to like girls. 

For the boys who dare to like boys.

Like it's something shameful. Like it's something dirty. Like it's something that needs to be hidden and erased. And corrected.

They speak of us as if we are a mistake. As if love, our love, is a stain on the world, something unnatural, something to be fixed.

They don’t know what it feels like to flinch when someone asks, “So, which boy do you like in the class?”

Because the truth sticks to the roof of your mouth like a forbidden word.
'I don’t,' I want to say. 'I never have.' But instead, I force a smile, play the game. “Oh, I think he’s lookable... but no one’s really that attractive in our class.”

Or I watch them admiring a boy, giggling about how cute he is, how they’d love for him to notice them, and I nod along, pretending. “Yeah, I like him too.”

The words taste wrong, like something borrowed, something that doesn’t belong to me. But I say them anyway. Because that’s what’s expected. Because anything else would be met with silence, with stares, with questions I’m not ready to answer. With looks I’m not ready to accept.

Because the truth isn’t just a sentence. It’s a risk.

They don’t know the weight of swallowing your own happiness just to make someone else comfortable.

They don’t know what it’s like to love in secret, to steal glances instead of kisses, to turn away instead of reaching out, because even touching fingers in the wrong place, at the wrong time, could mean danger.

They don’t know. And yet, they judge.

But if loving a girl means carrying this burden, then I will carry it. If it means hiding for now, I will hide. But I will never stop loving.

Because love, my love, is not the shameful thing here. Their hate is.

If only they knew.

If only they knew how badly I wished, prayed, begged to be like them. To wake up one day and feel different, to feel “normal.” To erase these feelings, to unlearn the way my heart beats for someone I’m not supposed to love.

But no matter how hard I try, I can’t change the way my chest aches when I see her smile. I can’t change the way my hands shake when she’s close, or the way her voice feels like a song I never want to stop hearing.

If sexuality was truly a choice, don’t they understand? I would’ve chosen differently. We all would have.

I would’ve chosen the easy road, the road without fear, without shame, without hiding.

But I never got the chance. To choose. To live. To just be myself.

I never got to choose who I love.

I only got to choose whether I lived a lie or lived with the weight of a truth that could break me. Break us. 

~~~

They say, 'you only live once,' choose your way,
But for me, it's a lie or fade away.
I don’t want to bow, don’t want to pretend,
I just want a life that’s mine to defend.